Air raid sirens echoed through the streets of Canterlot as jets fought each other in the skies above, the sound of tanks and gunfire rang out over and over. Buildings were being rapidly reduced to rubble while panicked civilians followed instructions to evacuate. Smoke rose into the sky from burning vehicles, and corpses of Onorussian and Equestrian soldiers were lining the streets. This was what struck Altair Occisor first as he sat in a Huey helicopter with Static, Finn, and Major Adler. They had been the only members of their unit to reach the rallying point, the others were likely out in the city somewhere when the attack had started.

Local police officers and private citizens were holding on by a thread in the areas that had been targeted with portals, they mostly consisted of heavily populated civilian areas to the East. Altair sat with an assault rifle strapped across his chest and his sword upon his back. He had been issued a kevlar vest, as it seemed the Equestrians had yet to master the use of arcane weaponry. His helmet was his own, adorned with an Onorussian flag on one side and a silver crescent moon pin at the front. The hueys were part of the counterattack to regain control of the city, so far the enemy was being slowly whittled down, but the battle was far from over.

Finn, a man that had been Altair’s friend since high school, looked out at the burning buildings in the distance. The man had a concerned expression on his face, his mother lived in that portion of the city, right in the area that was under the heaviest of fire. Static, another young member of the unit, was adjusting the helmet on his head. The thestral was used to using a targeting helmet by now, as he was a quadruped, but he never could seem to find a comfortable liner. Major Adler was the calmest of the four man group, he was older than his subordinates by a decade or so and had served on Terra during the reclamation wars.

“Ready up, men! Our mission is to take out the enemy AA emplacements before they can become operational!” Altair adjusted the holographic sight on his weapon as the helicopter approached the area that was under siege by the enemy. “We’ll be getting support from units already on the ground and two helicopter gunships! Private Static, you’ll be handling the explosives. Corporal Occisor, Corporal Finn and myself will cover you.”

“Roger that, sir!” Static replied as he picked up the bag that held numerous charges of Compound Gladius. Compound Gladius was an Onorussian designed explosive, C4 laced with specially designed arcane crystals that had been ground up and mixed into the explosive block. It could level a building in seconds, knock out a radio tower in a snap, and it would rip apart any anti-aircraft gun it came into contact with like a dog with a chew toy.

The helicopter stopped above an intersection, the door gunners kicked a pair of coild ropes out the side. They fell towards the ground and landed with a thud, Altair grabbed the end that was still attached to the Huey before he slid down the line. He landed with a thud and moved to secure the area with his assault rifle in hand, there were more than a few wounded soldiers laid up near a building that were being attended to by medics. They looked over at the soldiers rapelling in, it didn’t take them long to recognize the paratrooper patches on their uniforms.

“Hey! It’s the Fallschirmjager!” One of the wounded shouted as the helicopter flew off, leaving the four men in the intersection, a quiet murmuring went up through the wounded as Adler lead his troops towards the front. “I almost feel bad for the enemy!”

“Holy fuck! That one’s a Nacht-Trooper!” Another shouted, pointing to the silver crescent moon pinned to the Altair’s helmet. “Get some, Corporal! Make ‘em pay!” Altair nodded to the men as they passed, the Fallschirmjager were like rockstars in the Onorussian military, and it felt nice to hear that adulation. Of course, Altair couldn’t afford to dwell on it, he needed to focus on the mission at hand. Once they had cleared the field hospital, Major Adler began jogging towards the front. The sound of gunfire grew louder and louder, there were several burning tanks in various parts of the streets. One was Onorussian, one of the new Panther tanks, the enemy tanks were older model T-72s.

There were bodies of both sides strewn about the ground, this was Altair’s first glimpse of the enemy. They were like ponies, but bipedal, their uniforms looked like those of the Soviet’s during the invasion of Afghanistan. They were also armed with weapons similar to old Galils and AK-47s. What was most interesting was that they had only three fingers and a thumb on their hands, it was the most alien thing about them. Altair saw some of them had died in hand to hand combat with Onorussian soldiers, a diamond dog was slumped over one of the aliens, his neck was slashed while his paw was clenched around a knife embedded in the gut of the enemy soldier.

“Heads on a swivel, we’re nearing the rendezvous point!” Adler ordered as they approached another intersection. Two apartment buildings had collapsed, spilling rubble out into the road and created a small hill of concrete and brick that gave the four men cover. The lack of a military presence here told Altair just how fast the attack had come, ideally there would’ve been more troops but there only seemed to be him and his unit. There was a crashed Blackbird in one of the buildings, burning and belching out black smoke.

“Cobra!” A voice called out from somewhere among the rubble.

“Venom!” Adler shouted back quickly, two squads of soldiers emerged from one of the buildings with their weapons at the ready. A lieutenant stepped forward to Major Adler, a changeling with a bloody bandage wrapped around one of his hooves, he looked like he’d been through hell in the past half an hour or so. “Where’s Captain Summers?”

“Dead, sir. I’m Lieutenant Takeo, his XO.” The changeling replied, he winced in pain slightly and looked at the wound in his hoof. “Is this all they sent? We thought we’d be getting a whole platoon for this op.”

“Sorry, the rest of our unit is scattered all over the city, we’re all you have at the moment.” Adler replied in an apologetic tone. “Gimme a sitrep, what are we going up against?” Adler began walking towards the hill of rubble and peeked over the top to see what lay ahead, the two squads of soldiers followed him but stayed low. Takeo pointed over the hill with his horn at several enemy positions, there were two squads of enemy troops set up on the street ahead.

“They’ve been locked down tight for the past half an hour, that squad on the left has a wicked machine gun crew, that’s how they got Summers.” The changeling said in a tired voice. “They’ve got troops behind them setting up defenses for the AA batteries, we need to bust through before they can finish, or it’ll take a small army just to get past this hill. There was no cover between the hill and the enemy machine gun crew, just forty yards of open road.

“I think we can do something about them…” Adler said quietly before he pulled his radio from its pouch on his vest and brought it to his lips. “Tiger Seven, this is Eagle Five. Requesting fire mission forty yards north of my position, hostile MG team. Authorization Alpha Romeo One Five. Danger Close.”

“Confirmed Eagle Five, grab yourself some cover. ETA thirty seconds.” A voice replied from the radio, Adler dropped into a prone position on the hill of rubble. Altair and the others joined him, while the two squads raised eyebrows. Then they heard the telltale sound of rotor blades getting closer, dust began to kick up as a massive shadow presented itself over the intersection. Altair looked up and found himself staring at the belly of a Hind Gunship, armed to the teeth with rocket pods and machineguns. The enemy troops spotted it as well and began firing their Machine gun at the aircraft. ”Guns guns guns.”

Shell casings rained down around the Onorussian soldiers as loud gunshots erupted from the Hind’s forward mounted gatling gun. Altair watched as the bullets tore up the ground ahead of them, kicking up dust and rock as the rounds streaked into the enemy positions. To add insult to injury, the gunship let loose four of its rockets. The explosions ripped open a couple buildings, and certainly finished off anyone that had survived the initial volley.

“Ye-ha-haaaa! Get some!” Finn shouted as the dust began to settle, revealing the enemy soldiers had indeed been wiped out. Altair let out a yell of his own as they stood up and began advancing as fast as they could, their boots echoing loudly through the oddly quiet street. The bodies were bloody things, barely recognizable as the soldiers passed by the ruined street and destroyed corpses. The enemy anti-aircraft guns were up ahead, they appeared to be self propelled in nature with turrets to move the guns. Altair felt his heart skip a beat as one of the turrets began rotating downward and towards the three advancing squads.

“Sir! It sees us!” Altair shouted.

“Cover!” Adler ordered, Altair and the others dove behind rubble from the freshly collapsed buildings for cover. Adler grunted as his shoulder landed on a particularly angular brick fragment, all of them were now pinned down behind the rubble. What was worse, the AA emplacement was operational, which meant air support wasn’t an option this time. “I make that as… thirty yards ahead of us!”

“I liked this a helluva lot more when the AA Emplacement wasn’t operational!” Static shouted as bullets kicked up dust and debris close to him. Takeo was also taking cover with his troops, they seemed like they had just about had it. It was understandable, their uniforms had patches for the National Guard, they were likely never expecting their home to be invaded. Altair looked around for a couple seconds for any sort of way to change their fortune.

“Lieutenant, what’s on the other side of this wall!” Altair shouted over to the Lieutenant, who happened to be on the other side of the street. Next to Altair was a wall of one of the collapsed buildings, though from the looks of it the area beyond it was still intact.

“It’s a bakery, why?” Takeo asked, Altair looked at Major Adler.

“Sir, I think I found a way for us to get out of here.” Altair said, he gestured to the bag holding the explosive charges. Adler paused, as if unsure of what to do, but he also knew that if they stayed there they could very likely end up getting killed. “We place a charge on this wall, we can blow a hole large enough for us to get through, we can withdraw and regroup for a second assault!” Adler paused for a moment, then looked at Static.

“Static, rig up a breaching charge!” He ordered, the thestral nodded and unslung the explosives bag from his back. The stallion wound up standing higher than intended, Altair watched with shock as one of the bullets from the AA gun hit Static in the head. It punched through the helmet like it wasn’t even their, sending the thestral sprawling to the ground with a gaping wound in his skull. “Fuck!”

“Holy shit!” Altair shouted as he looked at the body laying on the ground, he rubbed his neck nervously as he saw the blood pooling around his dead friend. Adler grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him roughly.

“Keep it together, Corporal!” The major ordered, his intense blue eyes looking into Altair’s. “Grab those charges and rig up the blast! Don’t let him die for nothing!” Altair narrowed his eyes and nodded before grabbing the bag of explosives. Altair pulled one of the charges from within and pulled off a chunk of the Compound Gladius, he scurried over to the wall and stuck it to the concrete before taking a fragmentation grenade from his belt. Compound Gladius detonated with an Arcane frequency almost identical to those given off by the detonator in a hand grenade, Altair unscrewed the detonator from the grenade and stuck it into the chunk of explosives.

“Take cover!” He shouted over his shoulder before yanking the pin on the detonator and running back to Adler and Finn. The fuse popped, and several seconds later the explosive went off. It made a tremendous boom as it punched a hole in the wall and created a cloud of dust. Altair grabbed the bag of explosives and slipped it over his back.

“Go!” Adler ordered, he watched the other two squads rush through the hole before his own men went through. The Major was the last to pass through the hole, they ran through the bakery, passing by abandoned bagels and donuts that had spilled on the floor during the blasts from earlier. The building provided sufficient cover to get out of the killing zone of the self propelled AA battery, but it wasn’t like they could stay there forever. Adler and his remaining men moved to a doorway that lead out into the street, Takeo’s troops followed behind them. “Alright, my men and I will move forward and take out those guns. We need you to cover our advance, if they bring those batteries to bear on us the mission won’t last much longer!”

“We can do that!” Takeo replied with a grunt as he felt more pain from the wound in his leg. “First squad, set up in the windows. Second squad, I want you to set up your SAW in the doorway and really pour it on!” As the others got ready, Altair looked out the door. There were five enemy vehicles out there, but only one was operational at the moment. However, there was also a portal, and Altair could see a sixth vehicle coming through.

“Sir, even if we have enough charges to take out those vehicles, it won’t matter if they can keep sending more through.” Altair said as he pointed to the portal.

“Yeah, we need to do something to make sure those sons of bitches are deep sixed for good.” Finn added, he was still in shock from the loss of Static, but as time went on he was getting good and angry at the enemy. Adler nodded his head quietly, seeing the point of his two subordinates.

“Alright, first objective is to toss a charge through that portal and seal it up for good. After that we’ll focus on the operational AA gun, we can deal with the non operational ones when we aren’t running for our lives.” Adler said quietly as he looked at Altair. “Corporal, give me a charge. I’ll take care of the AA battery, you two focus on taking out that portal.”

“Sir, I’m faster! I should-” Altair began.

“That’s an order, Trooper!” Adler shouted, Altair stopped speaking, then nodded quietly. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry. Now, charge please.” Altair reached into the bag and removed one of the charges, this one was equipped with its own detonator which was remote controlled. Altair gave the Major the remote device next, though he still felt like he should’ve been the one to go into the breach. “Alright, Lieutenant! On my mark!” Adler, Altair, and Finn stacked up near the door as the two other squads got ready. “Do it!”

“Open fire!” Takeo ordered, the two other squads began firing at the enemy position while Adler lead his comrades out the door. Altair was breathing heavily as he headed towards the portal, his boots thudded heavily against the concrete beneath his feet while he passed by bombed out store fronts. The portal was located in an open park, the usual happy sounds of children playing in the grass was replaced by the chatter of gunfire. Altair and Finn dove behind a couple of bushes on the edge of the park.

“You take one charge, I’ll take the other!” Altair shouted as he unslung the bag of explosives. “First one there sets the timer and tosses.” The man slipped his rifle off and set it next to the now empty back. Finn was about to say something until he saw his comrade unsheath the blade on his back. “I want to give the Major some more time, we can by him time by making this as loud as possible…”

“I’m with ya.”

“Alright… Yell something loud and intimidating!” Altair shouted before he stood up and began charging towards the portal. He held the sword tightly, breathing heavily through his nose as he prepared himself for what could very well be his last act in life. “Tenno heika banzai!”

“Gott mit uns!” Finn shouted as he too began charging towards the enemy portal, the enemy soldiers that had been shooting at Major Adler were now drawn to the sound of shouting. They whirled around just as Altair had reached the first one, he slashed downwards with his blade, slicing the neck of his first enemy soldier. The Equestrians were stunned at first by the bloody display, allowing Altair to rush another one of their number and drive his blade through his gut. Finn began firing at the soldiers while Altair continued slashing and hacking while he pushed towards the portal.

Adler skidded to a stop next to the enemy vehicle, panting as he slide the explosive charge under its belly. The gunner was searching for him, but he was out of sight by now. The Major quickly ran away, towards the enemy portal, as he clicked the detonator. The explosives went off without a hitch, blowing the turret of the mobile AA unit into the air with a tremendous boom. He watched as Altair and Finn reached the portal at the same time, the two men tossed both charges through the portal before they dove away. The explosive was only visible for a fraction of a second before the energy vortex winked out of existence.

“Fall back!” Adler shouted loudly two his two men, he pulled a smoke grenade from his belt and yanked out the pin, then chucked it towards the other AA vehicles that were being readied as quickly as possible. Red smoke began to be carried into the air as Adler reached both of his men, the three of them ran towards the bushes where Altair quickly grabbed his gun before they continued towards the buildings. “Steel Rain! This is Eagle Five! I need a bomb run a target marked with red smoke, grid ref one five echo! Danger close! Give it everything you’ve got, and hurry!”

Overhead, the sound of the jet engines on the B-52 were barely audible to those on the ground. The aircraft’s belly opened, revealing a dozen or so large bombs, each had a rather cheeky message written on them. The first one to fall simply said ‘Have a Nice Day’, and was adorned with a simple smiley face. Unbeknownst to anyone, this particular bomb had a slightly defective detonator. An Equestrian heard a whistling sound overhead, he looked up just as something slammed to the ground next to him. The stallion looked in surprise as a massive bomb had landed next to him, a smiley face telling him to have a nice day was staring right at him. He only had about half a second before the rest of the bombs hit the ground, which in turn set off the first bomb.

Altair stood near the buildings, watching as the enemy vehicles were pulverized by the falling bombs. His sword was sheathed, and he stood with his hands gripping his rifle. The booms echoed through the streets for nearly fifteen seconds before an eerie stillness fell over the area, Finn stood next to Altair, looking out at the carnage that they had wrought in the distance.

”The enemy is falling back through their portals, it appears this was a probing attack. All units, stand by for further instructions.” A voice echoed over the radio as Altair saw more Onorussian helicopters flying overhead, APCs and tanks began rolling past on the streets that were still clear of major debris. Altair pulled a cigar from his pocket and bit off the cap, then lit it with his lighter. Major Adler moved up next to the two subordinates, watching as the enemy vehicles burned and belched out black smoke.

“I have a feeling this won’t be a forty eight hour war…” Finn said as he stared at the wreckage, Altair let out a puff of thick smoke while nodding. “So… When do we go to their capital city?”

“Not soon enough… But we’ll burn it to the ground when we do…” Altair said bitterly.

“When the time is right, Corporal…” Adler added. “When the time is right.”

[♠]

Steven sighed as he watched the beleaguered troops walking back through the streets of Canterlot, casualties were higher than expected, the enemy was certainly no stranger to militarism. Even the civilians were difficult to deal with, the ones that his soldiers had extracted acted just as gruffly and viciously as some of the few POWs they’d taken. Most of the POWs had either overpowered their guards and escaped, were shot while escaping, or had committed suicide. The only ones that hadn’t died were the ones that had been sedated before they could try anything, four in all. Meanwhile, it was estimated the enemy had taken nearly five hundred prisoners. That, added to those who were killed or wounded, put the total loss at two thousand soldiers.

The man looked down from the balcony of the command building at his wife who was standing near the street, Celestia was doing her best to try and welcome the civilians from the strange other dimension. Apparently, they called themselves Onorussians. Their nation was made up of a mishmash of races, including humans that had survived some sort of global plague. Their leader was a man named Dominic Occisor, and apparently, he was not a man to be trifled with. If only Steven had known that before he had essentially kicked in the front door, maybe he could’ve devised a better strategy or opened with negotiations.

He was used to dealing with absolute evils, villains that just wanted to do bad things because that was what they did. With them, a frontal approach usually worked. With someone who thought in more than two dimensions, it was a different situation entirely. Steven had severely underestimated how loyal the soldiers and civilians were, apparently Occisor was a hero to them. Steven just hoped that Celestia could get the new comers to accept what was happening, to help them see Equestria as their new home.

“Fuck you! I won’t do what you tell me!” A voice shouted from the crowd below, Steven looked over and spotted a teenager. He punched the stallion trying to escort him along before grabbing his sidearm from his holster. “Gott mit uns!” The teen leveled the firearm at Celestia. “Die, Solar Betrayer!” Before he could pull the trigger he was put down by another soldier, the teen groaned in pain as he was shot multiple times and collapsed to the ground. This resulted in numerous other civilians starting to punch and kick their escorts in an effort to arm themselves, Steven and Celestia both stood in shock at what was unfolding.

The soldiers were eventually able to reinstate order, but not before two more civilians had been wounded. Celestia opened her wings and flew upwards, landing on the balcony next to Steven, her expression was one of shock and dismay.

“I… I don’t know where to begin…” She said in a quiet voice. “I mean, I thought they would be glad to come here… You certainly were.” The mare looked at Steven. “I fear we may have made a mistake, they truly seem to hate us…”

“I’m afraid there may be no going back, the little information we’ve gained about Onorus says that they play for keeps.” Steven replied grimly as he leaned against the railing. “Any nation that has attacked them has been wiped out or invaded and annexed, they control half the globe in their dimension, they’ve even got their sights set on other planets.”

“If they plan to invade more planets, we must stop them.” Celestia said firmly, she looked down at the ponies walking along below. Steven took a moment to look at her, she was taller than him by a head. Bipedal, like the other ponies, but so much more graceful. She wore a white gown, to match her fur color, and even when she looked stern there was still a look of motherly compassion in her eyes. “I fear that we will be the first that they attempt to conquer, so we must be ready…”

“I’ll see to it at once.” Steven said, Celestia sighed and nodded. The man put a hand on her arm, prompting her to look over. “Hey, everything’s going to be okay. We took down Chrysalis, Sombra, even Discord! Compared to them, these ‘Onorussians’ should be like a breath of fresh air.”

“Perhaps…” Celestia said quietly. “I’m going to go and see my sister, I need to know what she thinks of all this.” Steven nodded quietly and watched as Celestia’s wings opened, like an angel she took off into the sky. The man sighed when he felt someone tap his shoulder, he turned and saw one of his advisors standing there.

“Sir, you should hear what’s on the radio in the other dimension.” The advisor said, Steven nodded and followed the stallion through the halls of the command center until he reached the dark and dingy radio room. It was packed with ponies, all trying to hear a sound from another dimension.

”...Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present Imperatrix Maria.” A man’s voice echoed over the radio. There was a brief pause as if someone was walking to a podium, the next thing the ponies and Steven heard was a woman’s voice.

”I speak to you tonight on behalf of my husband, as we speak he and his generals are hard at work…” The woman’s voice, Imperatrix Maria, said with a strong tone. ”Our nation has suffered a tremendous tragedy today, not at the hands of the Crystal Empire, the Minotaurs, or any other nation that calls this world home.” Steven didn’t know who this woman was, but she sounded just as strong as Celestia. ”Because of the nature of this surprise attack, nearly a thousand Onorussian soldiers lay dead. Among the dead are also three hundred civilians, and four hundred of the enemy.”

”I ask that all those out there who hear my voice, say a prayer for these souls, not just our own, but those of our foe as well… They fought well, and died well.” Imperatrix Maria continued, her voice carried through the room like a phantom. ”Congress has, at the behest of the Military, declared war on the enemy. A transdimensional nation known as the Kingdom of Equestria.” A surprised gasp could be heard over the radio. ”We have faced Equestria before and emerged stronger than before, I have no doubt the same will happen here.”

”My son fought in the battle today, it was the most scared I have ever been, and despite that I knew sending him was right.” The Imperatrix said firmly, her voice becoming heavy with emotion as she mentioned her son. ”We face an enemy unlike one we have ever faced before, and so we will be forced to make sacrifices unlike before… Many lives will be lost, but their loss will not be in vain, as the flag of our Republic will continue to fly… We will emerge victorious.”

”Gott mit uns! Gott mit uns!” The crowd on the other end of the radio chanted.

”Goodnight, and god bless…” With that the speech came to an end, Steven felt a bit more conflicted about the enemy now. The Imperatrix almost reminded him of Celestia or his own Mother in a way, the way her voice seemed to echo in his ears like that of a phantom from the past. She sounded emotionally hurt, and what was so concerning was that Steven felt guilty for making her feel that way… But he had to think of his own people, and if the Onorussians were coming, that meant he couldn’t afford to feel guilty. The man sighed and walked out of the radio room, leaving the others to continue listening to the radio from the other world.

Author's Note

Well, here we are! Collision War! Two words colliding, fighting viciously for dominance over the other, the destruction is going to be biblical! I'm really stoked for this story if you hadn't already guessed! I hope you all like reading this story as much as I like writing it, because it's something I've put a lot of heart into.

Now, here's your song of the day. It's actually what kinda gave me the idea for this story, as well as making Altair the Main Character.